🏡 Assisted living and nursing homes
In brief
Assisted living is a privately organised form of housing with basic services (e.g. emergency call system, contact person) and, as a rule, no care benefit of its own, whereas full inpatient care in a nursing home is a separate type of benefit of long-term care insurance. If you live in a nursing home, you pay, alongside the share paid by the Pflegekasse, an own contribution (Eigenanteil) that is uniform within the facility and that falls in percentage terms with length of stay through a supplement. Care home contracts are specially protected under the Housing and Care Contracts Act (WBVG).
Step by step
- Clarify the form of housingCheck whether assisted living, an adaptation of your own home or a nursing home suits the care situation.
- Check the care home contractBefore signing, have the pre-contractual information under the WBVG handed to you and compare the services and charges of different facilities.
- Involve the PflegekasseWith a recognised care level, apply for the full inpatient benefits of long-term care insurance.
- Check the own contribution and supplementHave it explained how high the facility-wide own contribution is and which benefit supplement for length of stay has already been taken into account.
- Consider home adaptation as an alternativeBefore moving, check whether a barrier-reducing conversion of your own home with a subsidy from the Pflegekasse allows you to stay at home.
Deadlines
- A nursing home place is (co-)financed by long-term care insurance only with a recognised care level; without a care level, you in principle bear the costs entirely yourself.
- The benefit supplement reduces the own contribution only in stages as length of stay increases – at the start of the stay in the home the own contribution is highest.
- Assisted living must be financed mostly privately; only individual, clearly separable services (e.g. emergency call system) can be covered as a separate care benefit.
In depth · legal basis, figures and practice – for advisers and professionals
Full inpatient care (§ 43 SGB XI) and benefit supplement (§ 43c SGB XI)
For full inpatient care, the Pflegekasse covers an amount graded by care level; the remaining facility-wide own contribution (einrichtungseinheitlicher Eigenanteil, EEE) has been reduced since 2022 by a benefit supplement from the Pflegekasse that rises with the length of stay in the home (§ 43c SGB XI): 15% in the first year, 30% in the second year, 50% in the third year and 75% from the fourth year of receiving full inpatient care benefits.
Housing and Care Contracts Act (WBVG)
The WBVG regulates contracts between consumers and businesses that offer housing together with care or support services. It obliges providers to give pre-contractual information on services and charges (§ 3 WBVG) and grants consumers a right of termination with two weeks' notice to the end of the month (§ 11 Abs. 1 WBVG), regardless of the longer periods of general tenancy law.
Home adaptation (§ 40 Abs. 4 SGB XI)
To improve the individual living environment (e.g. barrier reduction in the bathroom), the Pflegekasse pays a subsidy of up to €4,180 per measure (as of 1.1.2025, previously €4,000); where several persons in need of care live in the same household, the subsidy is capped.
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